Daylight Savings – What Is It? Why Is It? How To Cope With It

We often get stressed out or sometimes panic, when someone wants our time to be arranged or adjusted, depending on the situations and many other aspects. But some places on the earth specifically arrange and adjust their time, twice in a year just to save time and natural resources. Such procedure managing time for professional and personal betterment is called Daylight Saving Time.

What Exactly Is DST & When Did It All Start?

It is said that governments started using Daylight Saving Time during World War I and II to save resources and energies for war. There are places that continue the DST patterns to gain complete results.

History refers scientist George Vernon Hudson as the first person to coin this changing time pattern that can save time and energy. This pattern is usually seen saving time and energies in summers as the days are longer than night and currently, it has already begun in some parts of the world.

By shifting your clock forward, people can get into this Daylight Saving Time and can experience the changes of it. DST never got that light and recognition until Germany started using this time pattern during World War I as a technique to preserve fuels. After the Germans, Europe and US adopted this daylight saving time.

Energy Savings Through DST:

This time pattern was specifically invented to use energy wisely and conserve them during the crisis. Daylight saving time in the US became a national standard during the 1960s as the idea to shift the daylight hours we get the whole day. So if the sun sets by 8 pm according to DST, then we can use lesser light in our homes at night that results in savings of electricity.

As per the Energy Policy Act of 2005 in the USA, DST begins for nearly all the countries at 2.00pm from March’s second Sunday and ends at 2.00 of November’s first Sunday. The European nations start their DST from March’s last Sunday to October’s last Sunday.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Time-Shifting:

As this change in time pattern was invented to bring change in the conservation of energies and resources, people around the globe have on and off relationship with daylight saving time. A study suggested that we don’t actually store energy through DST and if that truly does, the result can be less than one percent. The sudden shift in time can lead us some major health issues affecting us internally. A human body can be affected by the change in sleep patterns and time.

Disadvantages Of Day Light Savings:

More heart attacks: Health is something that is widely seen, affecting due to daylight saving time. As this disturbs our sleeping patterns, it affects our nervous systems that can lead to heart attacks. The growth of 24% was seen in heart attack rates after DST comes in use.

Increase in miscarriages: Women who undergo Vitro fertilization can have miscarriages due to shifting to DST. Researchers think that the effect of damaging circadian rhythms can change fertility, a little bit. It is still unclear whether stress or sleep deprivation can lead to miscarriages or because of a shift in sleep cycles. But women with previous miscarriages believe that DST does affect pregnancies.

More fatal crashes: Car crashes can be caused due to changes developed after switching to DST. The single hour of lost sleep can increase fatal crash incidence in the US by 5.3 to 7.8 percent for the consecutive week. Sleep deprivation can lead workplace injuries specifically on Mondays, increase the rate of workplace injuries by 5.7 percent.

Worse stock markets: DST can make the atmosphere amongst stock marketers slightly worse as New York Stock Exchange can perform sick on a Monday after daylight saving time.

Longer legal punishments: By channelizing DST, the penalty or the sentence of a criminal or an individual can increase by 5 percent longer. This makes an individual to follow the order more than the noticed period.

These were some of the disadvantages that can bring a feeling of hatred towards DST. As every story has two sides, let’s see the advantages of daylight saving time.

Advantages Of Day Light Savings:

Lesser criminal records: With DST, the daylight becomes longer, hiding the dangerous criminals in their den that leads to fewer crimes. Overall, 7 percent of decrease was seen in robberies after shifting to daylight saving time. Such criminal incidents can take place in the middle of the day but can be comparatively less than normal standard time.

Less indoor stay: As per American Time Use Survey, researchers estimated that DST changes an individual’s habits that leave them indoors. Americans spend lesser time outside and watch television for about 2 hours or more, but with the shift in time, people are likely to spend more time outdoors. People are spotted doing different activities outside spending less time watching televisions.

How To Make Daylight Saving Time Easier:

It is not easy to work smoothly and adjust numerous things during daylight saving time. There are people who find it difficult to cope up with DST. This is why the below list can help you plan your day according to DST, causing no adverse effect on you.

Set reminders: Yes, you can do that on your phones to keep reminding you of time, your plans and many more. Setting an alarm can remind you of things and help you work according to DST.

Avoid Beverages and Alcohol: Avoiding tea, coffee or alcohol before going to bed can help you with healthy and deeper sleep resulting you to wake up early in the morning. Alcohol prohibits you from quality sleep so its better if you avoid drinking in the evening or at night.

Create To-Do-lists: There are times when you forgot to set a reminder for a particular occasion or meeting, so by making and maintaining the checklist can help you work efficiently without any disturbance and confusion. This can help in planning your time over lunch, tea-time breaks, sleeping time and many more.

Conclusion:

The feeling, people, have for DST is because of the changing patterns they are used too with. Human beings usually get disturbed when there is a sudden change in and around which can lead minor to major problems.

Daylight saving time, as discussed, was carried out to protect and use the natural resources efficiently, the researchers have both negative and positive studies that indicates saving energies. As people have both good and bad effect on health and wealth due to DST, some of the regions like Africa and Asia are still unknown to this concept and its working.

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